Four Prisons

Michael Li

Section A01

09/30/15

Blog 1

“The ‘Four Prisons’ and the Movements of Liberation” written by Glenn Omatsu describes the four prisons for Asian-Americans as the history, history and geography, social/class structure, and oneself. The article focuses on the uprising of Asian-Americans to confront the racism, exploitation and unfair treatment they have been experiencing in the United States. The start of the Asian-American social movements began with young Asian-Americans at the San Francisco State strike which was successful in gaining the first school of ethnic studies. What I found interesting/insightful was that the early Asian Americans movements were more in line with Malcolm X’s demands for rights rather than Martin Luther King Jr.’s more peaceful protests. Even now Asian Americans struggle with the image of the model minority which causes many to feel inferior because they don’t live up to some humanly conceived stereotype. Although many stereotypes existed during the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, it’s nice read about how Asian Americans redefined themselves during this period as there are still many Asian stereotypes today that need to be redefined.

Question: Glenn Osmatu describes a lot of misunderstanding in early Asian-American social movements even though these social movements are very recent. What happened to create such a large misunderstanding in the interpretation of these social movements?